Justification Memorandum for Screener to Recruit Participants to cognitively test the 2019 Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Ho

Legal Division

550 17th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20429-9990

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

May 22, 2018

 

Memorandum to:        Shagufta Ahmed

Policy Analyst              

                                    Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

                                    Office of Management and Budget

 

From:                Manny Cabeza

Counsel

Assessments and Legislation Unit

                                    Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

RE: Screener to Recruit Participants to cognitively test the 2019 Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households

Under our generic clearance entitled, “Information Collection for Qualitative Research” (Control number: 3064-0198), the FDIC hereby submits for OMB approval a screener survey which seeks to recruit consumers to participate in the pre-testing of the 2019 FDIC Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (Household survey) (OMB Control number 3064-0167). Recruiting of these participants is scheduled to begin on June 11 2018 in preparation for cognitive interviews that will take place in July and August 2018.

Purpose of screener survey. The purpose of this data collection is to recruit a mix of potential participants to pretest the survey with the goal of reducing measurement error and item nonresponse. The FDIC plans to conduct cognitive interviews with 40 adult participants. For this purpose, the FDIC anticipates contacting approximately 140 adult participants in order to identify a mix of consumers with different banking status, income levels, gender, and ethnic background. Participants will include consumers who use mainstream banking exclusively (fully banked), consumers with bank accounts that also utilize alternative financial services, such as payday advance loans (underbanked), and consumers with no checking or savings account (unbanked). Therefore, the recruitment screener survey asks questions about socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, income, and occupation, as well as questions about financial behaviors, including whether respondents have a checking or savings account and whether they have used any alternative financial services.

Methodology. Respondents will be recruited using a mix of strategies, including posting ads in local venues, use of consumer databases, and recruiting in-person at local businesses or organizations that are frequented by unbanked and underbanked consumers, like check-cashing businesses, payday loan institutions, rent-to-own stores, pawn shops, and grocery and convenience stores. Respondents will also be recruited using online advertisements placed on Craigslist. Respondents who complete the screener might be asked to provide contact information for one other person who may be interested or available to complete the study. Using this Respondent Driven Sampling approach will allow efficient recruitment of this hard-to-reach population.

Burden Estimate. The anticipated burden for respondents is shown below. We anticipate screening 140 respondents in order to complete 40 interviews. The screening process will take 5 minutes. Therefore, this effort will require 11.7 burden hours (5*140) /60 = 11.7 hours). No compensation will be provided in the recruiting phase. However, we anticipate that those selected to participate in the cognitive interviews, will receive $50 to offset travel costs and time spent.

Estimated Number of Annual Respondents: 140

Frequency of Response: 1

Estimated Time per Response: 5 minutes

Total Estimated Annual Burden: 11.7 hours